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<h1>Subordinate clauses? My kitten has those.</h1>

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<center><span class="summary">Outline</span></center>
<ol>
<li><a href="#part1">Treating verbs and state-of-being like adjectives</a></li>
<li><a href="#part2">Using state-of-being subclauses as adjectives</a></li>
<li><a href="#part3">Using subordinate verb clauses as adjectives</a></li>
<li><a href="#part4">Japanese Sentence Order</a></li>
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<h2 id="part1">Treating verbs and state-of-being like adjectives</h2>
Have you noticed how, many forms of verbs and the state-of-being conjugate in a similar manner to i-adjectives?  Well, that is because, in a sense,
they are adjectives.  For example, consider the sentence: "The person who did not eat went to bank."  The "did not eat" describes the person and
in Japanese, you can directly modify the noun 'person' with the clause 'did not eat' just like a regular adjective.  This very simple realization will
allow us to modify a noun with any arbitrary verb phrase!

<h2 id="part2">Using state-of-being subclauses as adjectives</h2>
The negative, past, and negative past conjugations of nouns can be used just like adjectives to directly
modify nouns.  However, we <u>cannot</u> do this with the plain non-past state-of-being using 「だ」.  (I told you this was a pain in the butt.)
The language has particles for this purpose, which will be covered in the <a href="particles3.html#part4"><i>next section</i></a>.

<p />
<center>
<table class="note">
<tr><td><strong><b>You cannot use 「だ」 to directly modify a noun with a noun
<br />like you can with 「だった」、「じゃない」、and 「じゃなかった」.</b></strong></td></tr>
</table>
</center>

<p>
You can, however, have a string of nouns placed together when they're not meant to modify each other.  For example, in a phrase such as
"International Education Center" you can see that it is just a string of nouns without any grammatical modifications between them.  It's not an
"Education Center that is International" or a "Center for International Education", etc., it's just "International Education Center".
In Japanese, you can express this as simply 「<span title="こくさい - international" class="popup">国際</span><span title="きょういく - education" class="popup">教育</span><span title="センタ - center" class="popup">センタ</span>」 (or 「<span title="センター - center" class="popup">センター</span>」).  You will see this chaining of nouns in many combinations.
Sometimes a certain
combination is so commonly used that it has almost become a separate word and is even listed as a separate entry in some dictionaries.
Some examples include: 「<span title="とうじょうじんぶつ - cast of characters" class="popup">登場人物</span>」、「<span title="たちいりきんし - no trespassing" class="popup">立入禁止</span>」、or 「<span title="つうきんてあて - commuting allowance" class="popup">通勤手当</span>」.  If you have difficulties in figuring out where to separate the
words, you can paste them into the WWWJDICs <a href="http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/jwb/wwwjdic?9T">Translate Words in Japanese Text</a>
function and it'll parse the words for you (most of the time).
</p>


<h3>Examples</h3>
Here are some examples of direct noun modifications with a <i>conjugated</i> noun clause.  The noun clause has been highlighted.
<p>
（１）　<em><span title="がくせい - student" class="popup">学生</span>じゃない</em><span title="ひと - person" class="popup">人</span>は、<span title="がっこう - school" class="popup">学校</span>に<span title="いく - to go" class="popup">行かない</span>。
<br />- Person who is not student do not go to school.
</p>

<p>
（２）　<em><span title="こども - child" class="popup">子供</span>だった</em>アリスが<span title="りっぱ - fine, elegant" class="popup">立派</span>な<span title="おとな - adult" class="popup">大人</span>に<span title="なる - to become" class="popup">なった</span>。
<br />- The Alice that was a child became a fine adult.
</p>

<p>
（３）　<em><span title="ともだち - friend" class="popup">友達</span>じゃなかった</em>アリスは、<span title="いい - good" class="popup">いい</span><span title="ともだち - friend" class="popup">友達</span>に<span title="なる - to become" class="popup">なった</span>。
<br />- Alice who was not a friend, became a good friend.
</p>

<p>
（４）　<em><span title="せんしゅう - last week" class="popup">先週</span>に<span title="いしゃ - doctor" class="popup">医者</span>だった</em>ボブは、<span title="しごと - job" class="popup">仕事</span>を<span title="やめる - to quit" class="popup">辞めた</span>。
<br />- Bob who was a doctor last week quit his job.
</p>

<h2 id="part3">Using subordinate verb clauses as adjectives</h2>
Verbs clauses can also be used just like adjectives to modify nouns.  The following examples show us how this will allow us to make quite detailed and
complicated sentences.  The verb clause is highlighted.

<h3>Examples</h3>
<p>
（１）　<em><span title="せんしゅう - last week" class="popup">先週</span>に<span title="えいが - movie" class="popup">映画</span>を<span title="みる - to see" class="popup">見た</span></em><span title="ひと - person" class="popup">人</span>は<span title="だれ - who" class="popup">誰</span>？
<br />- Who is person who watched movie last week?
</p>

<p>
（２）　ボブは、<em><span title="いつも - always" class="popup">いつも</span><span title="べんきょう - study" class="popup">勉強</span><span title="する - to do" class="popup">する</span></em><span title="ひと - person" class="popup">人</span>だ。
<br />- Bob is a person who always studies.
</p>

<p>
（３）　<em><span title="あかい - red" class="popup">赤い</span><span title="ズボン - pants" class="popup">ズボン</span>を<span title="かう - to buy" class="popup">買う</span></em><span title="ともだち - friend" class="popup">友達</span>はボブだ。
<br />- Friend who buy red pants is Bob.
</p>

<p>
（４）　<em><span title="ばんごはん - dinner" class="popup">晩ご飯</span>を<span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べなかった</span></em><span title="ひと - person" class="popup">人</span>は、<em><span title="えいが - movie" class="popup">映画</span>で<span title="みる - to see" class="popup">見た</span></em><span title="ぎんこう - bank" class="popup">銀行</span>に<span title="いく - to go" class="popup">行った</span>。
<br />- Person who did not eat dinner went to the bank she saw at movie.
</p>

<h2 id="part4">Japanese Sentence Order</h2>
Now that we've learned the concept of subordinate clauses and how they are used as building blocks to make sentences, I can go over how Japanese sentence
ordering works. There's this myth that keeps floating around about Japanese sentence order that continues to plague many hapless beginners to Japanese.
Here's how it goes.

<p>The most basic sentence structure in English can be described as consisting of the following elements in this specific order: [Subject] [Verb] [Object].
A sentence is not grammatically correct if any of those elements are missing or out of order.</p>

<p>Japanese students will tell you that Japanese, on the other hand, while frothing at the mouth, is completely backwards!! Even some Japanese teacher might tell you
that the basic Japanese sentence order is [Subject] [Object] [Verb]. This is a classic example of trying to fit Japanese into an English-based type of thinking.
Of course, we all know (right?) that the real order of the fundamental Japanese sentence is: [Verb].
Anything else that comes before the verb doesn't have to come in any particular order and nothing more than the verb is required to make a complete sentence.
In addition, the verb must always come at the end.
That's the whole point of even having particles so that they can identify what grammatical function a word serves no matter where it is in the sentence.
In fact, nothing will stop us from making a sentence with [Object] [Subject] [Verb] or just [Object] [Verb]. The following sentences are all complete and correct
because the verb is at the end of the sentence.</p>

<h3>Grammatically complete and correctly ordered sentences</h3>
（１）　<span title="わたし - me, myself, I" class="popup">私</span>は<span title="こうえん - park" class="popup">公園</span>で<span title="おべんとう - box lunch" class="popup">お弁当</span>を<em><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べた</span></em>。
<br />（２）　<span title="こうえん - park" class="popup">公園</span>で<span title="わたし - me, myself, I" class="popup">私</span>は<span title="おべんとう - box lunch" class="popup">お弁当</span>を<em><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べた</span></em>。
<br />（３）　<span title="おべんとう - box lunch" class="popup">お弁当</span>を<span title="わたし - me, myself, I" class="popup">私</span>は<span title="こうえん - park" class="popup">公園</span>で<em><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べた</span></em>。
<br />（４）　<span title="べんとう - box lunch" class="popup">弁当</span>を<em><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べた</span></em>。
<br />（５）　<em><span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べた</span></em>。

<p>So don't sweat over whether your sentence is in the correct order. Just remember the following rules.</p>

<div class="sumbox">
<span class="summary">Japanese sentence order</span>
<ol>
<li>A complete sentence requires a main verb that must come at the end. This also includes the implied state-of-being.
<br />例） <span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べた</span>
<br />例） <span title="がくせい - student" class="popup">学生</span>（だ）
</li>
<li>Complete sentences (subordinate clauses) can be used to modify nouns to make sentences with nested subordinate clauses. (Except for one exception, <a href="subclause.html#part2">see above</a>)
<br />例） <em><span title="おべんとう - box lunch" class="popup">お弁当</span>を<span title="たべる - to eat" class="popup">食べた</span></em><span title="がくせい - student" class="popup">学生</span>が<span title="こうえん - park" class="popup">公園</span>に<span title="いく - to go" class="popup">行った</span>。</li>
</ol>
</div>

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<div class="small" style="text-align:right;"><pre>This page has last been revised on 2006/9/19</pre></div>

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